Basil for the Exultation of the Cross

Little Bear and I sat down this morning to talk about today's feast, and I guess he hadn't yet realized that when we make the Sign of the Cross we're literally making a cross, so I feel a little negligent on the faith-teaching, but at least he knows now... And he thought it was really neat, and kept tracing the cross and saying the words over and over again.

I also told him the story of St Helena traveling to Jerusalem in search of the true cross; she noticed a patch of sweet basil growing on an otherwise-barren hill, dug beneath it, and found the Cross of Christ. "And that's why we're going to use basil in a special bread for supper," the story ended.

Last night, I decided that a basil bread would be a good way to tie in to the feast day, and would go well with the pork loin on the menu. It was going to be super easy: my usual French bread recipe, with a scattering of dried basil kneaded in. If I was feeling really fancy, maybe I'd even braid the loaf. Idly googling "braided basil bread", I stumbled upon this recipe. That's so beautiful! I thought. Ha, there's no way I'm even attempting something so fancy. Then I showed the picture to my half-Italian husband.

Oops.

"That looks wonderful! That's what you're making tomorrow? Great!" 

Onto the shopping list went fresh basil. Since I was getting the food processor dirty anyway, I figured I'd take advantage of it to make a bunch of pesto, so I got two packages of basil instead of one. It didn't quite all fit in the food processor at once, but after two-thirds of the leaves were chopped up, I was able to fit the rest in. The whole kitchen smelled very basily! After measuring out the two-thirds cup that I needed for the bread, I still had enough pesto to fill 15 ice cube tray slots. I popped the tray into the freezer, and tomorrow or so I'll dump my nice little pesto cubes into a freezer bag.

For some unknown reason, I wasn't content to make this already-too-hard-looking bread exactly as the original recipe showed; I decided to one-up the original and braid my loaf into a cross. Because basil and the true cross and the feast day... And I'm maybe a little nuts. But it worked! No one was probably more shocked than I was with how it turned out, honestly. It really, truly, was much easier than it looks!

Braided Basil Cross Bread

Pesto*

4 oz (about 2 cups lightly packed) fresh basil

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

6 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup pine nuts or walnuts

Pulse together basil and cheese in the food processor. Drizzle in olive oil. Add garlic and nuts, pulsing until pretty smooth.

*This will make more than you need for the bread, so measure out 2/3 cup and freeze the rest in small amounts; to use later, thaw and dilute with olive oil.

Dough:

1 cup warm water

2 teaspoons yeast

2 pinches sugar

2 1/2 to 3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt 

2 tablespoons olive oil

Grated Parmesan for on top

Stir yeast and sugar into water and proof. In a mixing bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups flour and salt (I used 1 cup spelt flour, the rest white flour). When yeast is bubbly, pour into flour along with olive oil. Mix together and knead for at least five minutes, adding more flour if it's too sticky. You should end up with a soft, very slightly sticky ball of dough. Cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

Lay down parchment paper on the counter, and lightly sprinkle with flour. Turn out the dough onto the parchment paper. [I had actually never used parchment paper before today, because I always figured it was a silly extra thing that you didn't really need; oh. my. goodness. did it ever make this easier! Totally worth it.] Stretch dough into a rectangle, rolling out to about 18"X12". If your pesto is very thick, dilute with 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil. Spread pesto over dough, leaving about half an inch border.

Roll the dough up like you're making sweet rolls, long side over, and pinch the seam closed. Cut the rope into two pieces, one slightly longer than the other.

Pinch the cut ends closed. With a sharp knife, slice each rope in half lengthwise.

Keeping the cut sides up, position the four pieces in a cross such that the four strands weave together, each over one and under one.

Twist each section of the cross together, being careful to keep the cut sides facing up. Pinch the two strands together at  each end.

Slide the parchment paper with the cross on it onto a sheet pan. Allow bread to rest about a half hour. While it rests, preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Just before putting in the oven, sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Slide the loaf off of the parchment paper onto a wire rack to cool.

Jam dreams

Matt laughed and shook his head this evening. "You're in squirrel mode, storing up food for the winter." Being a mature adult, obviously I stuck my tongue out at him... but it's kind of true.

I'd been flipping through the grocery store's sale flyer for the coming week, and peaches, nectarines and plums will be at the lowest price I've seen all summer, low enough that I can't not load up on them. I'm entertaining visions of bright, beautiful jars of canned fruit, as well as a cupboard full of jam to last us through the winter. Buying jam makes me crazy, because jam is so easy to make, but I have been awful about finding time to make it these past few years. Also awful at following recipes, so when I have set aside time to make jam, it's most often turned out syrupy. But not this time. No more playing fast and loose with quantities and seeing how little sugar I can get away with using; I'm doing it right.

My mom made an amazing spiced plum jam recently with anise, cinnamon and vanilla. I don't think I'd ever had a spiced jam before; I might have to make a batch myself! I've also been seeing a bunch of recipes for savory peach jams lately, like a rosemary-peach or this peach-thyme-black pepper jam. To use as a glaze for pork or chicken, maybe? Mm. We will see. Growing up we often made "blushing peach" jam with raspberries, which is good, but I don't love raspberry seeds in my jam... Peaches and strawberries might be a good combination, though, and I already have strawberries in the freezer.

I'm sure there are lots of other good jam recipes and spice combinations for peaches, nectarines and plums; what am I missing? I would love some more ideas!

Mark the calendar

First snowfall of the year: September 12, 2015.

Everything melted by the time it hit the ground, and it's more drizzling than snowing now, but for a couple of hours we had big fat flakes falling. Eighteen days earlier than last year! I now feel like much less of a wimp for complaining that my hands were cold when I got home from a rainy run to the farmers market this morning.

We woke up to a pretty chilly house, so Matt and Little Bear stayed home to build a fire while Kit and I made a quick trip to the market in search of more apples. The folks with the apples weren't there—hopefully they'll be back next week if we have more favorable weather!—but I did bring home a few finds:

Two pounds of broccoli florets, three and a half pounds of green tomatoes, and three good-sized zucchini.

The broccoli is beautiful! I'd been worried I was too late in the season to find any, and I definitely should have started blanching and freezing it a month ago, but there was one woman with two one-pound bags of florets, and I scooped up both. This afternoon I'll blanch the broccoli, shred the zucchini, and get them all in the freezer. What could be better than vegetables that have gone farm to freezer in less than a day? The green tomatoes, we'll have fun with in the next few days.

Seven Quick Takes

I

The sun had just crested the ridge before ours as I was driving home from dropping Matt at work this morning, and I had to stop and take a photo. The hills are gilded right now, and I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can because I know the leaves will be down soon.

II

We had a late night last night, Little Bear playing out in leaf piles with his youngest aunts and uncle while Matt and I lost track of time talking with my parents. We didn't get home until after 8:30, so I was expecting a rough night. "If the kids both have really good nights and I'm able to drive you in tomorrow," I told Matt, "then I'll go to Mass. Otherwise I'm staying home." Make a promise like that, and of course what happens? Both kids fell asleep quickly and slept through the night. Mass it was.

III

Little Bear was so well behaved in Mass today! Sitting next to his aunt certainly helped, as did having a priest with a strong Indian accent which kept him paying attention. Little Bear was good, Kit slept or was quiet on me, and for the first time ever, ever, that I can remember at this parish—and I've attended this parish pretty much all my life—the church was silent after Mass ended, with everyone either kneeling back down to pray or heading out quietly instead of starting up loud conversations. It was wonderful. Startling. But definitely wonderful.

IV

Tonight we learned that our favorite ice cream place is closing by the end of September! It's a local place with the best ice cream in the world, and we're so disappointed. The owners plan to continue their seasonal open-air ice cream stand next summer, but the year-round ice cream parlor and their partnership with local restaurants are both ending. We have been saving up our "points" from buying ice cream there ever since we got married, and keep saying we'll redeem them for an ice cream cake when we have a reason to have a cake, but I suppose we'll have to pick one up before they close and just keep it in the freezer.

V

Little Bear has been amusing lately.

In the sunny parking lot: "Mom, I'm having trouble making the sun stop shining."

Getting into the food-preserving spirit: "We will make lemon blueberry popsicle salt granola bar jam!"

Offering suggestions: "Should we have another one more cookie now? Two cookies? Okay!"

VI

Playing school is still fun. It doesn't happen every day, but most days we pull out at least one or two schoolbooks and spend some time with them.

Little Bear has clearly paid more attention than I'd realized when he's been at my mom's house during school time, because he surprised me by knowing the answers to several questions from the first two religion chapters: "Who made you?" "God!", as well as immediate Yes's to "Does God know and see all things?" and "Can God do all things?" We got a little sidetracked today on "Where is God?", because the concept of "everywhere" was astonishing; "In church? In our house? In the garage? In a tree?" 

He's known his alphabet for I don't know how long, more than six months now, but has really begun making the connection between letters, sounds and words. It is so great to watch him light up as he hears himself say a word, and realize that he knows what letter it starts with! He had a lot of fun the other day running around the apartment looking for things that started with T to feed to this tiger.

VII

Science with Daddy is very possibly everyone's favorite subject. When we first started talking about homeschooling, Matt felt particularly strongly about making sure we did "all the experiments" in science courses. Since he's enthusiastic about it (and doesn't typically have a baby in his arms every waking moment), I've been very happy to get materials ready each week and then let Matt be in charge of "doing science" at some point over the weekend. Little Bear has been so excited about looking forward to their projects, and Matt has been enjoying them too. This semester they're going through a book of earth science projects; they've learned about the layers of the earth by frosting a big cookie, made crystals with gumdrops and toothpicks, and I think this weekend they're making a cross section of a volcano with salt dough.

Check out more quick takes at This Ain't The Lyceum!

Food for the winter: Dehydrating

The blog silence recently hasn't been intentional, but it's actually not the kids' fault either: it's the fall's. Or maybe more accurately, the coming winter's. I know it's still summer in most of the country, but out my window?

Yellow. Yellow everywhere, especially on the ground. The rest of those leaves are going to be down before we know it, and then comes the cold. This morning was actually on the warmer side—51 degrees F when we brought Matt to work—but still chilly enough to not let us forget that "winter is on its way," as Little Bear reminds us ten times a day.

Fresh produce in Alaska in the winter is, as a general rule, tasteless and exorbitantly expensive. And with several feet of snow on the ground, you know it's not coming from anywhere remotely local! So I've been working on preserving the produce that's abundant now, hoping to really cut down on the produce I have to buy this winter.

We're borrowing a dehydrator from a friend, and I have a new favorite appliance: slice up the food, lay it out on the dehydrator trays, plug it in, and walk away. So far I've dried peaches, apples, and oregano, and they've all come out perfectly. The peaches took eight and a half hours, the oregano twelve, and the apples—miniature apples from branches grafted onto crabapple trees—were done in about four hours. We were disappointed to discover that dehydrating the peaches didn't heat them enough to denature the proteins that keep Matt from being able to eat most fruits raw, so when he learned from a coworker with the same allergy about the local orchard whose apples they could eat, we picked some up from the farmers market.

The apples are good raw, a little tangier than normal apples, but they seem sweeter dehydrated. Matt can have regular apples if they're cooked, but not fresh or dried, so these are perfect for drying to save for snacks, muesli, oatmeal, etc for him all winter.

I don't see myself dehydrating anything other than fruit and herbs, so I haven't quite decided yet whether buying one would be a worthwhile investment. I've sure been enjoying using it, though.

Nativity of Mary

Yesterday was Our Lady's birthday! The feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin is one of those fixed-date feasts that ties in with another date; in this case, we celebrate Mary's birth exactly nine months after the Immaculate Conception (December 8). 

It's so much fun celebrating feast days with a project-loving preschooler. When I told him yesterday morning that it was Mary's birthday, he jumped up all excited and asked if he could make a birthday card for Mary. While I fed Kit, Little Bear found himself a blank card and went to work. I didn't even get to see the inside until he opened it after supper, because he sealed it in an envelope and set it up next to the statue of Mary.

I really wanted to make it to Mass for the feast day. We sort of shoot for attending daily Mass once a week, on Fridays, but it definitely doesn't always happen. Yesterday was a pretty average illustration of why... Kit woke up from a nap demanding to eat; when she was done and I'd just gotten shoes on, Little Bear needed to be changed; when that was done and both kids were buckled in, Kit needed to be changed; when I finally pulled out of the garage I noticed that Little Bear had snuck his breakup boots on instead of decent shoes; and halfway down our road I realized that I'd forgotten the ring sling and I couldn't manage the store post-Mass without it... Most days, I would have given up several steps previous; yesterday, we slipped into the back at the end of the general intercessions. Ugh. At least we got there?

Birthdays call for cake, and Little Bear was very excited to help me bake a blueberry coffee cake for dessert.

Nothing terribly fancy, but a good day of reminders that we celebrate Mary as our mother, as a member of our family, and give thanks on the day of her birth for her role in the plan of salvation through her "Yes" to God's will.

Leftover rice

Friday night, my parents had a whole bunch of folks over for supper, including our family. To help my mom out, I brought over a crock pot of brown jasmine rice; counting up the expected guests, Mom and I figured that about eight cups cooked would be enough that we wouldn't run out.

Well, we didn't run out. I brought close to six cups of rice back home with us.

Saturday evening was the Catholic radio station's "crock pot cook-off", with a category for chili. I didn't have any ground meat thawed, really didn't want to grind up one of our last remaining caribou roasts... and my vegetarian chili just happens to go well over: cooked rice. Along came a big bowl of rice to the cook-off.

And along home most of it came again afterwards, as most of the attendees opted for meat-laden options instead.

We took a break from rice on Sunday. Yesterday Little Bear and I ate it for lunch, and tonight we had a big skillet of fried rice with chicken and random assorted vegetables (peas, corn and cauliflower, anyone?) for supper. As we were cleaning up after, Matt gestured to the crock pot basin that still held a fair bit of rice. "What do you want to do with that?" I rolled my eyes. "Leave it out. I'll make something."

Voilà, brown jasmine rice pudding:

Except, I underestimated how much rice I had left, so there's still a cup and a half or so in the fridge now, and I have no idea what to do with it. I'm so sick of rice at this point... Can I freeze it? Is that possible?

The pudding is pretty good, though—I wasn't in the mood for more rice tonight, but tomorrow morning I'll warm it up and it'll make a great breakfast.

Stovetop Rice Pudding

1 1/2 cups cooked rice

2 cups milk, divided 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten*

1/2 cup raisins 

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine rice, 1 1/2 cups milk, and salt in a saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes, until thickening begins. Add remaining 1/2 cup milk, egg, raisins, sugar, and vanilla. Cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool; pudding will thicken more as it cools.

*If you don't care about the occasional little piece of cooked egg in your rice pudding, you don't have to pre-beat the egg.